Nanded Zilla Parishad member booked for fraud

AURANGABAD: After the Supreme Court turned down a Nanded Zilla Parishad member’s plea seeking relief against High Court directives to register an FIR against her for using forged caste certificate to contest elections on a reserved seat, the police have registered an offence against the woman from Loha on the charges of cheating and forgery.

Her special leave petition filed before the Supreme Court (SC) bench, comprising Justice Arun Mishra and Justice Navin Sinha, was dismissed in the order dated May 9. Nanded superintendent of police Sanjay Jadhav told TOI, “We have registered a case of cheating and forgery at Sonkhed police station against the woman Zilla Parishad (ZP) member.”

The division bench of the High Court comprising Justice TV Nalawade and Justice Mangesh Patil on April 9 directed the police to ‘register the crime for offence of forgery, for offence of using the forge certificate and by that cheating the authority. Any other offence may be added.”

The HC took a note of the report submitted by the assistant inspector of Sonkhed police station, stating that the correspondence made with two caste scrutiny committees Amrawati and Yavatmal, have informed the police that no such caste validity certificate is issued in favour of Anikta Deshmukh (32), who contested the Zilla Parishad elections from Sonkhed constituency on a seat reserved for OBC category for the term 2017 to 2022.

At the time of filing the nomination form, Deshmukh had submitted a caste certificate dated January 2, 2012, and caste validity certificate dated January 17, 2012. She had claimed that she belonged to the Maratha Kunbi caste that falls under the OBC category.

Representing the petitioner in the case, lawyer Ganesh Gadhe said that after she won the elections, a woman Lata Bandewar filed a petition before the district judge at Kandhar, contending that Deshmukh does not belong to the OBC category and she is from open category. Bandewar claimed that the Caste Certificate and Validity Certificate produced on record at the time of filling the nomination form are forged, bogus and fabricated.

During the course of trial, Deshmukh and Bandewar amicably settled the matter and the election petition was withdrawn. However, it had come on record that the caste certificate had not been issued by the authorities. Hence, it was termed as false and fabricated. HC lawyer Prashant Nagargoje said, “As per the law, the election petition cannot be withdrawn, but surprisingly in violation of the law the petition was withdrawn and even allowed to be withdrawn.”

Later, Deshmukh’s political opponent Vijay Shetkar filed a case with the Aurangabad divisional commissioner. Eventually, the cast validity committee was asked to file a report. In its report on January 4, the committee communicated that the file of caste validity certificate number 1483 was not found in the records. It further stated that even Ankita Deshmukh’s name was not found in the inward register.